US: Pentagon asserts Congress must expedite Ukraine aid by May 19 to avoid interruptions

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Friday said that the proposed $40 billion Ukraine aid package approved by Congress must be passed "quickly" by Thursday, May 19 to avoid an interruption of US military equipment and weaponry shipments to the war-torn country, resisting Russia's aggression. Further, he informed that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have dispatched a letter to House and Senate requesting immediate approval by the end of next week to avoid the gap in the flow of the weapons. 

“May 19 is the day we really — without additional authorities — we begin to not have the ability to send new stuff in,” Pentagon's press secretary John Kirby told reporters on Friday, May 13. “It’ll start impacting our ability to provide aid uninterrupted.” 

By May 19-20 US forces shall be ready with aid delivery: Pentagon spokesperson 

Responding to a reporter's question about how soon the aid could reach Ukraine's armed forces, or whether the approval process would mean a halt in the flow of the weaponry, Kirby said that $3.5 billion in drawdown authority has already been approved in March as part of the $1.5 trillion government funding bill. And while it will be exhausted later this month, the DoD will ensure that Congress approved the additional funding to avoid hindrances to the military aid shipment.

By May 19-20, he said the US forces shall be ready with the aid delivery. An estimated $100 million in funding is still left to be allocated from the $1.5 trillion pool, informed Kirby. And Pentagon has asked the Senate “to act as quickly as possible so we don’t get to the end of May and not have any additional authorities to draw back, to draw upon.”

“If we don’t get those authorities soon … it’s possible that there could be a bubble — a period of time in which, you know, there’s just nothing moving and we want to make sure we avoid that,” Kirby said. 

Kirby had asserted earlier at a conference that the United States wants Ukrainians to "win" the war against Russia. “We want Ukrainians to win this war, to see Ukraine not have to fight for its sovereignty as it has been for eight years," he iterated. He continued that Ukraine “wants to see Mr Putin and the Russian army lose this invasion. Ukrainian lives are destroyed and obviously, we want to see that end."